Every week at Movie Mezzanine, we pick some of the best films currently on Netflix Instant in the United States and Canada. Whether they are big releases or hidden gems, these movies make your subscription worth the price. From each library we select one Newly Added film, one Catalog Title and one Expiring Title for your viewing pleasure. Read on for this week’s picks.
U.S. Picks
New: Manhunter (Michael Mann, 1986)
Now regarded as that Hannibal Lecter movie that didn’t star Anthony Hopkins, Michael Mann’s Manhunter is every bit the equal of Jonathan Demme’s superb The Silence of the Lambs, and therefore, of course, drastically superior to the Hannibal films that followed. Rooted in Mann’s period of ’80s impressionism, Manhunter‘s color-coded scenes and morally dubious characters play the criminal-as-flip-side-of-the-cop trope to some of its richest, most unsettling depths. Tom Noonan’s serial killer, numb but vain, treats his work as an obsessive occupation as much as the physically and mentally scarred FBI agent (William Petersen) on his trail. The climactic shootout, set to Iron Butterfly’s “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida,” is a sustained high of terror that transfers the subjective fear, rage and hunger onto the audience in a way perhaps too good for comfort. — Jake Cole
Catalogue Title: Small Soldiers (Joe Dante, 1998)
Joe Dante’s films reveal a mastery of satire fit for all ages, and Small Soldiers illustrates this beautifully. Small details ground the story in subtle social commentary—a pacifist’s toy store teeters on bankruptcy because children only want toys with war and violent imagery attached—before it all collapses into wilder farce as a batch of the latest, coolest action figures compartmentalize the military-industrial complex and threaten an entire neighborhood with their single-minded mayhem. Less anarchic than Dante’s other great materialist free-for-all, 1990’s Gremlins 2: The New Batch, Small Soldiers nevertheless indulges in pandemonium while making a focused point against that same culture of violence as it informs our youth. Enduringly relevant. — Jake Cole
Expiring March 3: Chelsea on the Rocks (Abel Ferrara, 2008)
Today marked yet another round of major house-cleaning for Netflix Instant, so hardly anything is getting scrubbed in the next week or so. So I’ll point you (and, really, myself) toward this documentary made by Abel Ferrara, one of my favorite vulgar auteurs. It concerns the famed Hotel Chelsea, an intellectual hotspot of New York City for decades, and the adoptive residency of artists as diverse as Bob Dylan, Jonas Mekas and Arthur Clarke. Ferrara is one of the quintessential New York filmmakers, though his displacement from the city that fueled his Cassavetes-meets-exploitation oeuvre makes me even more curious to see him delve into one of the city’s great artistic landmarks. — Jake Cole
Canada Picks
New: Night Train to Munich (Carol Reed, 1940)
A British secret agent disguises himself as a German soldier to save a kidnapped scientist and his daughter during WWII. While not quite as brilliant as Reed’s The Third Man, the thrilling story of Night Train to Munich makes for one of the better contemporarily produced war films at the time. There is, of course, a bit of a propaganda element to the film, but it doesn’t get in the way of the story. A nice treat is the inclusion of the hilarious characters, Charters and Caldicott, from Alfred Hitchcock’s The Lady Vanishes. — Corey Atad
Catalog Title: Adventureland (Greg Mottola, 2009)
Mottola’s follow-up to Superbad was not met with nearly the praise, nor the box office success of that film. The biggest problem for it was that it was sold as a follow-up to Superbad. In fact, Adventureland is a much quieter, more emotional film. It’s not as riotously funny, but its depth carries it. Many of you might have already seen the film, and I’m sure many of you are already aware of its charms, but for those who aren’t, or for those who avoided the film after hearing bad things, I implore you to give it a chance. The film even has good performances from Kristen Stewart and Ryan Reynolds! — Corey Atad
Expiring March 5: Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life (Terry Jones, Terry Gilliam, 1983)
Somehow this entry in the Monty Python film collection doesn’t get quite the love it deserves. Granted, it feels much more like a set of unrelated sketches than The Holy Grail and its satire doesn’t reach the levels of the immortal Life of Brian, but even still, The Meaning of Life may be the funniest of the three films. Right from the completely insane opening sketch with the pirate accountants, to the live sex education skit, to the insanely amazing Catholic anti-contraception song, the film is chockfull of Python-esque hilarity. — Corey Atad
